.\"***************************************************************************
.\" Copyright 2018-2023,2024 Thomas E. Dickey                                *
.\" Copyright 1998-2010,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.                  *
.\"                                                                          *
.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a  *
.\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the            *
.\" "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including      *
.\" without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,      *
.\" distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell       *
.\" copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is    *
.\" furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:                 *
.\"                                                                          *
.\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included  *
.\" in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.                   *
.\"                                                                          *
.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS  *
.\" OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF               *
.\" MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.   *
.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,   *
.\" DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR    *
.\" OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR    *
.\" THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.                               *
.\"                                                                          *
.\" Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright   *
.\" holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the     *
.\" sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written       *
.\" authorization.                                                           *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
.\" $Id: curs_instr.3x,v 1.57 2024/06/08 20:47:39 tom Exp $
.TH curs_instr 3X 2024-06-08 "ncurses 6.5" "Library calls"
.ie \n(.g \{\
.ds `` \(lq
.ds '' \(rq
.\}
.el \{\
.ie t .ds `` ``
.el   .ds `` ""
.ie t .ds '' ''
.el   .ds '' ""
.\}
.
.de bP
.ie n  .IP \(bu 4
.el    .IP \(bu 2
..
.SH NAME
\fB\%instr\fP,
\fB\%innstr\fP,
\fB\%winstr\fP,
\fB\%winnstr\fP,
\fB\%mvinstr\fP,
\fB\%mvinnstr\fP,
\fB\%mvwinstr\fP,
\fB\%mvwinnstr\fP \-
get a string from a \fIcurses\fR window
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
\fB#include <curses.h>
.PP
\fBint instr(char *\ \fIstr\fP);
\fBint winstr(WINDOW *\ \fIwin\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP);
\fBint mvinstr(int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP);
\fBint mvwinstr(WINDOW *\ \fIwin\fP, int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP);
.PP
\fBint innstr(char *\ \fIstr\fP, int \fIn\fP);
\fBint winnstr(WINDOW *\ \fIwin\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP, int \fIn\fP);
\fBint mvinnstr(int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP, int \fIn\fP);
\fBint mvwinnstr(WINDOW *\ \fIwin\fP, int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, char *\ \fIstr\fP, int \fIn\fP);
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B \%winstr
extracts a string from a
.I curses
window
.IR win ","
starting at the cursor and stopping at the end of the line,
and stores it in
.IR str ","
terminating it with a null character
and
omitting any attributes and color pair identifier
that
.I curses
associates with each character.
.B \%winnstr
does the same,
but copies at most
.I n
characters from
.IR win "."
An
.I n
of
.B \-1
implies no limit;
.B \%winnstr
then works like
.BR \%winstr "."
\fB\%ncurses\fP(3X) describes the variants of these functions.
.SH RETURN VALUE
These functions return the count of characters copied from
.I win
to
.IR str ","
or
.B ERR
upon failure.
.PP
In
.IR \%ncurses ","
they return
.B ERR
if
.bP
.I win
is
.B NULL
or
.bP
.I str
is
.BR NULL "."
.PP
Functions prefixed with \*(``mv\*('' first perform cursor movement and
fail if the position
.RI ( y ,
.IR x )
is outside the window boundaries.
.SH NOTES
All of these functions except
.B \%winnstr
may be implemented as macros.
.PP
Reading a line that overflows the array pointed to by
.I str
with
.BR \%instr ","
.BR \%winstr ","
.BR \%mvinstr ","
or
.B \%mvwinstr
causes undefined results.
Use of
.BR \%innstr ","
.BR \%winnstr ","
.BR \%mvinnstr ","
and
.B \%mvwinnstr
is recommended instead.
.SH EXTENSIONS
.BR \%innstr ","
.BR \%winnstr ","
.BR \%mvinnstr ","
and
.BR \%mvwinnstr "'s"
treatment of
.B \-1
as a valid value of
.I n
is an
.I \%ncurses
extension.
.SH PORTABILITY
Applications employing
.I \%ncurses
extensions should condition their use on the visibility of the
.B \%NCURSES_VERSION
preprocessor macro.
.PP
X/Open Curses,
Issue 4 describes these functions.
It specifies no error conditions for them.
.PP
X/Open Curses Issues 4 and 7 both state that
.BR \%instr ","
.BR \%winstr ","
.BR \%mvinstr ","
and
.B \%mvwinstr
return
.B OK
rather than a character count.
This is likely an erratum.
.bP
SVr3.1 and SVr4 implemented
.B \%winstr
as a wrapper around
.BR \%winnstr ","
returning the latter's return value.
X/Open Curses's specification thus may have been an editorial solecism
copied from System\ V's documentation
(see below)
by X/Open,
rather than an intentional change.
.bP
.I \%ncurses
retains compatibility with System\ V
.I curses
behavior.
.PP
SVr4 documents no return values apart from
.B OK
and
.B ERR
for any of these functions.
SVr4 does not
document whether
.I n
counts the null terminator that these functions write to
.IR str "."
.SH HISTORY
SVr3.1 (1987)
introduced these functions.
.SH SEE ALSO
\fB\%curs_inwstr\fP(3X) describes comparable functions of the
.I \%ncurses
library in its wide-character configuration
.RI \%( ncursesw ).
.PP
\fB\%curses\fP(3X),
\fB\%curs_inch\fP(3X),
\fB\%curs_inchstr\fP(3X)
